Yasmine Tadross

In my last day of fulfilling the Diversity Quota for a few days in Oregon, I made a visit to Portland State University, where I got accepted into their Urban Planning Masters program. I had an appointment with Dr. Bates in the department to talk about some of the facets of the program and maybe possibly be my advisor if I choose to go into the program. So I took MAX and went down to PSU and the campus was gorgeous. Half of it essentially blended in with the rest of the city and the other half had old brick buildings with lots of tall blossoming trees. It was so gorgeous that I got lost trying to find the Urban Planning and Affairs building. I was scrambling on google maps to find the building, but even the map was confused too. So after asking four different people, I finally arrived at the Planning department with three minutes left to spare. What allowed me to breathe a little bit was that there was a cute brown guy with a tattoo sleeve on his arm which put me at ease. ...

Today I started of the morning making my cup of coffee, buttered bread, and watching 3 episodes of "Love" on Netflix (I would have watched more, but I needed to get my black hairy ass out of the house, also great guilty pleasure show!!!). Anyhow, so I walked from my house to the MAX light rail station to downtown to go and check out Powell's City Book Store. The building was amazing, three long levels of every kind of book that you can imagine. You could ask if they had a book about Tuesdays gorcery shopping list and they would probably have it. They, have an entire floor deicated to religion, feminism, Race, and sci fi, it was a book lovers paradise! I would have honestly spent so much more time there, but I needed to save my money. So I bought The Color of the Law and Bad Feminist,  which I am really excited to start reading these books when I get the chance. After I bought the books, I started to explore downtown to get a bite to eat. While walking in downtown, through...

A started off my day at around 6:30 am getting ready to go to Powell's books, but I received a text at 2:23am from Carina, a close friend/mentor from Sonoma State who now works at Oregon State was in Portland for the weekend for her partners birthday. She invited me to at Drag show Brunch at Stag, a gay nightclub in Downtown Portland with such dim rainbow lighting that I did not think the rainbow was functioning this morning. Also, the bartender was a fucking gorgeous black man with thick black braided hair, muscular arms with tattoo sleeves on both, and a well-trimmed beard. I would love to climb him like a tree. I would happily say yes to having erotic sex in public. Anyhow, I was with Carina, her partner, and some of her friends. At that moment I did not know what to expect because usually when a friend introduces me to their group of folks I did not know how social I should be or what kind of person I should perform. So I got over myself and just breathed. I caught up with...

After a brisk walk through all the 1920 victorian bangalows and the infinite book shops for a cup of coffee, I finally said see you later to Ashland. After, 4.5 hours of driving through Snow, powring rain, and a raibow cutting through the gray skye, I arrived in Portland. In the first 15 minutes of being here, out of all the major cities that I have been to, this is the most amount of trees and white male hipsters that I have seen in any place. I am currently staying in North East Portland, specifically Piedmont, which seems be white with a handful of black folks; each and every black person I saw I sent Audre Lorde solidarity (or the nod) to them. The Place that I am staying in is a tiny cottage wear their are old light brown vintage oak floors and a country kitchen with white subway tile counter tops. It was my dream home. All it needed were some photos of Nina Simone and some glitter, breathtaking! In being here for just a few hours, I have seen so many cute white hipsters. I checke...

As I drove up through an endless sea of Redwood trees, picturesque views of Mount Shasta, and stopping by the one Del Taco on the way because I was craving LA/OC nostalgia, my hairy black femme ass finally arrived in Ashland Oregon. A town of 1920s bungalows in which I want to turn them all into tiny houses on wheels, tree-lined streets, and two black folks (from my view); one of them made a transphobic comment about my leggings and my purse, however, I can't help but trigger the desires of men! It was gorgeous, a town where you see old hippies the left of you and college students to the right. A town where I could honestly just feel settled in and fulfill the diversity quota. Views of Mount Ashland with a top layer of snow on top, green pastures, and hills with infinite redwoods on top. From the endless amount of microbreweries who like to pride themselves on making the best chicken wings (do they want a metal for mediocrity), I went and got Ramen on a night that was 39 degre...